I’m with you on the general irrelevance of the USPS in my daily life, but as you mention, there are some things that require interaction with them.
My funniest USPS moment: I was getting my passport (I had lived 30+ years without one) and the line wasn’t too bad, but I had waited about 25 minutes on a lunch hour to get to the front. With the transaction only requiring one more step, the fire alarm went off. The clerk could have easily stamped/done whatever she needed to do to complete the file and I could have gone on my merry way. By the second tone of the alarm, she had dropped everything and said “everyone out”.
I spent the next 45 minutes waiting outside with a bunch of giddy postal employees, thrilled for the unscheduled break. I couldn’t return to my office because my documents (including birth certificate) were sitting literally in plain view on a postal counter. When the all clear was given, I spent a grand total of approximately 45 seconds wrapping the transaction up.
I’m sure there are good people who work for the USPS. But organizationally, they suck.
For the most part the USPS is not bad for what they do and I’ve had some good experiences but when I had to pick up my last certified letter it took a ½ hour of standing on line only to deal with a rather surly and rude USPS worker for whom it was quite obvious, didn’t want to be there.
OTOH, when I accepted my current job my HR manager sent my pre-employment paperwork via FedEx and mistakenly checked the option for “signature” required.
So I came home and found a sticker on my door from FedEx saying they had tried to deliver a package to me and since it required a signature, gave me options for doing so – redelivery or picking up from my local FedEx site and provided a toll free number and a web link for doing so. It was great. At 9:00 PM I logged into the FedEx site with the tracking number and indicated that I would pickup. I was then linked to directions to the closest FedEx site and within minutes received a phone call from a FedEx rep to confirm and ask me if I had any questions or concerns. When I went to the FedEx site, which was open until 8:00PM, I was greeted by a friendly and helpful rep and got in and out with my package in less than 5 minutes.
FedEx organizationally wise is very good in my experiences with them.